


Play the Hand You're Dealt

by ambyr



Category: Burn Notice, In Plain Sight
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Older Woman/Younger Man, Self-indulgent fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-12
Updated: 2011-10-12
Packaged: 2017-10-24 13:29:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/263990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambyr/pseuds/ambyr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Michael gone, Miami's not the same. Madeline goes looking for a change of scenery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Play the Hand You're Dealt

**Author's Note:**

> Set post-season 4 of _Burn Notice_ ; assumes season 5 doesn't exist. (Mostly because it didn't, when I was writing.)
> 
> There is no canonical evidence that Stan plays bridge, but it seems like a Stan thing to do. Probably he doesn't mention it at the office because Mary would tease him endlessly.

With Michael gone, Miami's not the same. No one's trying to kill her, for one thing, or kidnap her, or intimidate her, or blow up her house. That should be a good thing. No, that is a good thing. But there's still stores Madeline can't enter without flinching and streets she can't walk down without searching for scorch marks.

Besides, there's only so long she can dodge Bill Cowley's offers for dinner, and his politics still make her stomach churn.

She doesn't sell the house. She doubts she could find a buyer, even in a better market. Sam's repairs probably weren't built to code and sure as hell weren't built to permit, and the last thing she wants is to have to explain any lingering damage to an earnest young couple waving a home inspection report. But she hangs up a for-rent sign, pushes the renovated garage as the perfect man cave or in-law suite or retreat for ungrateful college kid home for the summer, and within two weeks has a pile of applicants.

She makes Barry check their credit ratings.

Ruth is six months along, and Nate's pushing Madeline to move to Vegas, but she's not sure she can take all the glitz. Besides, they've banned smoking in restaurants, and though Nate swears up and down it'll be repealed any day now she doesn't see how she can trust a state that would do a thing like that. She stares at a map, studies the plane routes, and flips a coin between Albuquerque and Phoenix. They're both an easy non-stop from her grandchild-to-be, and they've both got weather she can handle.

Albuquerque wins. She shoves most of her stuff in a storage unit, not looking too hard through boxes and bins where Michael might have hid something she doesn't want to see; signs a lease on a 55-and-over condo that promises gleaming granite counter tops, multiple swimming pools, and gates that will keep out all crime (she snorts); and buys a plane ticket.

She leaves her forwarding address with Barry, in case Michael comes looking. She leaves it with the Post Office, too, but better not to encourage Michael to commit mail fraud to get it.

In Albuquerque there's still card games, still sunshine, still sales on ridiculous flowered dresses that she would never wear and on giant earrings that she lets overflow her nightstand. There's no beach, but she's never denied she's past her best bikini days, and if she's not sunbathing that's one less cancer for her doctor to badger her about.

There’s no shadow of Frank hanging over her, which is surprisingly nice. She meets a guy at the condo clubhouse during a get-to-know-your-neighbors bash, goes on a few dates, then avoids the poolside for three months when he can't work out that "old" doesn't mean "desperate" and "no" still means "no."

It's that or kick him into the deep end, and it's a good thing for him it's winter or she's not sure which she'd pick.

Ruth has the baby. Madeline flies out for three weeks to coo and fuss and change diapers, and comes back strung out from nicotine withdrawal. Nate's gone from swearing the smoking ban will be revoked to desperate for it to be extended and lecturing worse than Michael. Having kids does funny things to you. She should know.

She drops by the weekly bridge tournament at the community center around the corner and has her cigarette out and lit before she catches the organizer's glare and exaggerated gesture toward the "no smoking" sign. Madeline wants to roll her eyes, but she also wants to smoke a damn cigarette in peace. They haven't even finished setting up the bidding boxes, so she goes outside and leans against the wall, watching the sky purple with thickening clouds.

A guy with a cell phone in hand follows her out, grey-haired and balding and two decades her junior if he's a day, and gives her a sympathetic look as he walks past her to take the call somewhere private. Whoever he's talking to, it's not going well. She can't hear him from across the parking lot, but she can see his arms waving, and when he comes back to the community center his expression has settled on pained. He still dredges up a smile for her, and somehow or another they end up dissecting two months of hands while she finishes her smoke. He doesn't cough once. She appreciates that.

They don't partner that time--she'd promised Celia--but they do next week, and the week after that. It's nice to sit across from someone who doesn't even quirk at eyebrow at what people keep telling her is an aggressive style of play. Next thing she knows, they're having dinner out, and then dinner in. After one attempt on her part, he takes over the cooking duties, and she relegates herself to bringing the beer.

When Nate and Ruth drive down with the baby, now sitting upright and making sounds they can pretend are words, she introduces them to Stan. Nate waits until dinner's over and Stan has left the restaurant before expressing his horror that Stan is 1) young enough to be his brother, 2) dull as a Toyota Camry in need of a paint job, and 3) probably secretly some kind of mob hit man.

She considers Nate's life, considers Nate's choices, decides anyone he disapproves of so flagrantly must have something going for them, and tells Nate that if Stan is a hit man, it just means he'd fit in with the family.

She doesn't tell him she's growing a soft spot for Ruth, who possesses a keen understanding of when it's time to get the baby out of the way for a smoke break. She doesn't tell him Stan does, in fact, have a secret profession. It's none of his business. None of hers either, really, but she didn't spend all that time in Miami with Michael without learning something about surveillance and how to spot a hidden gun.

It's also none of Michael's business. But that doesn't stop him from sweeping into her condo (through the window, and so much for those gates) six months later and hissing, "Mom! You're dating a federal agent!"

"I know," she tells him brightly, and lights a cigarette just to give him something else to complain about. He doesn't take the bait.

"I wanted you to have a normal life," he says, the window still open behind him. "I wanted you to be safe."

"I am safe, and this is normal," she says, irritated. "Nate says he's dull as dishwater. We play bridge. We watch movies."

"You're trusting Nate as a judge of character?" he asks, incredulous.

"No," she says, "I'm asking you to trust me. Which I know isn't your thing, but really, Michael. You can't be bothered to call once a month, but you flew out here to play chaperone?"

She doesn't tell him that even here, she keeps the shotgun in her closet, and it's reassuring to know she's not the only one around who knows how to work a firearm. She doesn't tell him that she wants _him_ to be safe, that she doesn't trust the CIA any more than he trusts Nate, and that knowing someone who knows how to hide people--or to find people the government has hidden--is an even greater comfort.

She does tell him to call occasionally. He makes no promises, but he stays for three days and helps her install better shelving in the pantry. She's pretty sure he's actually working some job elsewhere in town, and doesn't ask. They're even: he doesn't ask to meet Stan.

When she meets Stan at his place for dinner--clams in white wine sauce, because she'd said the one thing she missed from Miami was the seafood--after missing bridge for Michael's visit, he doesn't ask when she's been. That's one good thing about dating someone from WitSec; he has respecting privacy worn into his bones.

One day, she knows, she's going to have to explain about her son the spy cum occasional fugitive. One day he's going to have to explain about his job. But not today. Today she settles back into the wrought iron chair on his patio, lets his arm curl around her shoulders, and enjoys the knowledge that both her sons (and grandson) are safe, her boyfriend's a better cook than she is, and they are certainly (probably) going to win next week's bridge tournament. And no one is trying to kill her.


End file.
